Although regional officials claim that speed/red light cameras increase traffic safety, they are strangely unwilling to provide the raw data to document the effectiveness of the equipment on which they are spending millions of tax dollars.
In January, for example, The Washington Examiner asked officials in D.C. and Montgomery County how they determined whether speed/red light cameras resulted in fewer accidents, injuries or deaths at each specific location where they were deployed. If the cameras really do increase traffic safety, as officials insist, the before/after data should confirm it with concrete numbers.
Recommended Stories
A month and a half later, we’re still waiting. District officials told us they determine that the cameras increase traffic safety “by comparing statistics, where available, from one fiscal year or calendar year to another.” That’s fine, but they still failed to provide the data they claim to have. Montgomery County didn’t even bother answering the question. Freedom of Information Act requests for this elusive data have since been sent to both jurisdictions.
According to the D.C. Office of the Chief Financial Officer, the city collected $54.8 million in red light/speed camera fines from motorists in 2011. Of that amount, $29 million went to American Traffic Solutions Inc. to install and monitor 47 red light cameras and 46 fixed and portable speed cameras, while the city kept $33.7 million. Montgomery County collected $10.6 million in citations and another $1.2 million in late fees from its speed camera program in 2011. Drivers who opted to pay online were also hit with a $3 per ticket processing fee. (Prince George’s speed camera program was only implemented last September.)
It’s obvious that speed/red light cameras are successful in raising revenue, but officials insist raising revenue is secondary to enhancing traffic safety. If a traffic camera in use on a busy highway or intersection results in fewer accidents because drivers are slowing down or stopping earlier to avoid a ticket, then it is doing its job and a decrease in ticket revenue is a sign of success. But that’s not how local officials see it.
As Examiner reporter Ben Giles reported this week, Del. Carolyn Howard, D-Prince George’s, testified before a Maryland House of Delegates committee that she overheard an unnamed official state “that speed cameras were going to be moved so they could generate more revenue. That was not the purpose of the bill when it was passed,” Howard reminded her fellow lawmakers. Her bill, making it illegal to move traffic cameras solely to maximize revenue, is needed precisely because money, not safety, has become the program’s real goal. If that is not the case, officials owe it to taxpayers to produce the data that proves it.
